This paper analyzes patterns of regional labour market development in Germany over the period 2000-2003 by means of a spatial-dependence continuous-time model. (Spatial) panel data are routinely modelled in discrete time. However, there are compelling arguments for continuous time modelling of (spatial) panel data. Particularly, most social processes evolve in continuous time such that analysis...

This paper examines the cost efficiency in the nursing home industry, an issue of concern to Swiss policy makers because of the explosive growth of national expenditure on elderly care and the aging of the population. A stochastic cost frontier model with a translog function has been applied to a balanced panel data of 1780 observations from 356 nursing homes operating over five years (1998-2002)...

Traditionally, the gender wage gap has been explained by gender differences in the level of human capital (observed gender wage gap) and by discriminatory forces in the labour market (unobserved gender wage gap). One candidate for explaining part of the unobserved gender wage gap is occupational segregation. In this dissertation we study the characteristics of horizontal and vertical occupational...